Friday, June 27, 2014

My son in law finally got the time to build me a desktop computer that plays STO and my other games. He gave me a widescreen Dell monitor for it that is just fabulous! The thing is still worth $250 used, so it's quite good.

Being not new, it does have a few small issues, but overall, I'm satisfied with it. STO and all my other games look so much better now that it's like night and day. I'm so grateful to him to get me something like this.

Now, if someone could just loan me $199 for the STO lifer subscription while they're on sale, I'd appreciate that too. No takers? Ah well, I'll just keep saving a bit to my paypal till I get what I need and wait for the next time the price goes on sale this winter.

I'll never have the top gaming systems that serious gamers have, but this does what I want it to do, so I'm happy.

So, what is STO? Star Trek Online. It's a fairly popular MMORPG, based on, you guessed it, Star Trek. It's quite fun. You take a Starfleet, Klingon or Romulan character and you play them starting at graduation day at Starfleet academy, as a third officer of a Klingon ship or as a Romulan farmer. Through various instances you'll find yourself captain of a starship and you'll go out fighting the enemies of your faction.

Yeah, that's it in a nutshell, there's so much more that goes on as well. Special events in summer and winter are fun things to do in between fighting. There are PVP/PVE missions to run for Reputation or Fleet marks or you can do other reputation missions. This is all in addition to the storylines that you play. And the best part is that it's free to play. They do have a lifer subscription, but it isn't necessary, that only gets you lots of free stuff and perks to your account.

But I have to say that some players need lessons on proportions. During the Summer Event on Risa, I've seen so many male avatars with broad, bulky shoulders chests and arms and small hips and legs. They look like they're going to topple over any second now, they're so top-heavy. The big-busted females don't bother me that much, but having them stand around with their hips thrust out so far that it looks out of joint does. But if a player wants their female to look slutty and their males to look like upside-down pyramids, that's their choice. I prefer to proportion my avatars accordingly. And it's easy, just put the sliders mostly in the same spot and fine tune it. I have some beautiful females and handsome males doing that. And I choose a nice neutral stance for the females that makes them look feminine, but not slutty. After all, I don't want a female Kirk, or a male one, for that matter.